To University of Houston assistant coach Anthony Goldwire, Mercy Miller is like dynamite. Just light the match and step back out of the way.

” I always joke with him,” Goldwire tells PaperCity. “Like the last week to 10 days, he’s been on a burner in practice. Just having great days in practice. I joke with him. He’s just like a keg of dynamite on the bench. Just waiting to be lit.”

Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson is starting to light Mercy Miller a little more often — and the natural scorer who once put up 68 points in a high school game is at least sparking. With Sampson wanting to reduce the heavy workload on his starters and wing Chase McCarty still hurting from a left wrist injury, Miller’s played 16 and 18 minutes in this now 20-2 UH team’s last two blowout wins. That’s the most minutes that Miller has logged in back-to-back games all season and second most in his career — behind only the 21 and 23 minute he recorded in the second and third games of his freshman season.

But it’s not just the minutes. It’s what Miller is doing with them. He puts up nine points, three rebounds and an assist in 16 minutes as Houston rolls over a UCF team that beat both Texas Tech and Kansas by a 79-55 margin that actually makes the game seem closer than it was. UH freshman wonder point guard Kingston Flemings looks to set up Miller for a 3-pointer and is rewarded with a swish.

This is when you know a bench is coming into its own. When the starters look for them and expect results. Take backup center Kalifa Sakho, who plays arguably the best game of his brief and injury interrupted UH year with seven points and seven rebounds against UCF. (Though Sakho also played mighty big in that one point win over Auburn in Birmingham, Alabama.) Three different Cougars throw alley-oop dunks to the long limbed 6-foot-11 Sakho on this night.

Flemings, Milos Uzan and sixth man Isiah Harwell all find Sakho in the air. Because they’re looking for him. Because they’re confident he’ll be there to throw it down. Sakho is starting to show he deserves that confidence.

Belief is earned in Kelvin Sampson’s program.

This is how the Cougars cross the 20 win marker for the 11th straight season on February 4th. That is six days faster than even last season’s historic national championship runner-up Houston team reached 20 wins. It’s one thing to win 20 games. It’s another entirely to do it when Punxsutawney Phil is barely back in his hole.

“I don’t take it for granted,” Kelvin Sampson says. “But I’ve been coaching for a long time. I know how hard it is to win a game. It’s very hard to win a game. One of the worst things you can do is be somewhere where the fans are arrogant. Or the media is arrogant. And you don’t give proper credit to the success the program’s had.

“Because I’ve seen that happen other places. I’m not talking about here. But that happens. Teams become victims of their success. Because you no longer excite anybody for winning 20 games a year.”

Holding two Big 12 teams to 20 points or less in the first half of back-to-back games (20 for Cincinnati, 19 for UCF through the first 20 minutes) is its own kind of excitement. The kind that produces shudders of horror around the league. Consider that UCF came in averaging more than 80 points a game.

“No disrespect to Kansas or Texas Tech, but neither of those teams are the defensive team this Houston team is,” Fox sports analyst LaPhonso Ellis tells PaperCity. “The only other team I’ve seen out there that’s remotely close would be the Iowa State Cyclones.

“When you combine physical toughness with athletic ability, the buy-in on the defensive end. That you have versatile bigs — (JoJo) Tugler, Chris Cenac — who in short shot clock situations can switch on a guard. That’s high level.”

Kingston Flemings and Chris Cenac’s Real Thrill

Mercy Miller and Kalifa Sakho are exciting high-level teammates who want to celebrate their successes more than their own. Flemings (18 points, six assists) gets to the basket so often and seemingly easily against UCF that the Knights must wonder if he found some secret EZ Tag lane. His breakout early in the game, when he slows down at the very last instant to lose a defender frantically charging from behind, is a work of art. But Flemings is never more excited than when Mercy hits that three.

Fellow uber talented freshman Chris Cenac Jr. (14 points, 10 rebounds, two assists, two steals) shows he can take over a game when he’s not hitting the three ball over befuddled big men. Cenac backs down a UCF defender to score in the lane, adds some hooks on the baseline, putting moves he’s been working on all season with assistant coach Kellen Sampson into game action.

But Cenac is never more excited than when he’s jumping around on the bench and grabbing his teammates in showy mock horror when Sakho throws down that last alley-oop from Isiah Harwell.

Kalifa Sakho and Mercy Miller do not win this game. But they allow starting center JoJo Tugler, who’s been feeling sick, to play only 14 minutes, and lifeline shooting guard Emanuel Sharp, who had to re-tape a bothersome ankle during the game, to not have to do as much heavy lifting as usual.

“No disrespect to Kansas or Texas Tech, but neither of those teams are the defensive team this Houston team is. The only other team I’ve seen out there that’s remotely close would be the Iowa State Cyclones.” — Fox sports analyst LaPhonso Ellis

The Big 12 is as unforgiving as a wronged John Wick and the big games just keep coming. Second place Houston now gets a win desperate BYU team and No. 1 NBA Draft Pick contender AJ Dybantsa on Saturday night in one of the toughest road environments in the country. (They may serve several varieties of milk at the Marriott Center, but the crowds are still deafening.)

You need some Mercy Miller games to thrive in this conference. Especially in this type of UCF game.

So go ahead and the light the dynamite. Mercy Miller’s learned how to be ready.

“Just knowing if there’s something I may not like, I just got to keep working,” Miller says. “Keep stacking the days and eventually things — just hope for the best that things go my way. Staying patient. Staying ready whenever my number is called.”

With his shorter shorts (by today’s standards), Mercy Miller almost looks like could be out of the 1970s on this night. There is plenty of old school mid-range ways in his game too. He almost pulls off a highlight of highlights on a stutter step drive to the rim that he tries to reverse layup in, upping the difficulty (it just misses). But making an impact never goes out of style.

“The offensive thing will take care of itself,” Goldwire says of Miller. “He’s a natural scorer. And for a guard he’s a natural rebounder.”

You might not need — or be able to use — bench dynamite every game. But it’s sure good to know it’s there.